Tuesday, May 10, 2011

How to make "flat dots" on cookies . . . Works for Me Wednesday

Ever had one of those "How did they DO that?" moments? I sure did. I had been decorating cookies a few years and saw some cookies in the Martha Stewart catalog (I miss that catalog).

The cookies had FLAT dots and stripes and they really boggled my mind.
Once I figured out how to make them, I, well, went kinda went dot crazy. It is probably my favorite cookie decorating technique. {And it's so easy!}First....here's a little video (from last year) if you are a visual learner. :)
(More how-to cookie decorating videos like this can be seen at University of Cookie.)Here's how to do it...{portions of this post were originally published here in 2007...have I really been blogging that long?}

Thin two (or more) colors of icing with water to approximately the same consistency, like a thick syrup. One shouldn't be noticeably thinner than the other.

After outlining, flood the cookie with the base color first and spread with a toothpick.

While the base color is still wet, add the dots using a squeeze bottle. The dots must be added to the wet icing, but do give the base color a few minutes to set. Adding the dots right way, especially dark on light, may cause some bleeding into the main icing as it dries. I typically work 6-8 cookies at a time, adding the base color, then going back with the dots.

If the bleeding does happen, don't worry...it's just a cookie! Chance are, no one will notice but you. :)

Tell Shelly that I am a completely normal, with-it, 38 year old woman who is not on Facebook. I think it's an awful waste of time! I'd rather be looking at beautiful cookies or finding neat sewing projects. :-)

I FINALLY attempted dots a couple of weeks ago, but they weren't quite flat. I am going to try again SOON with strawberry cookies. I even saved some strawberry baskets:) You are the reigning queen of dots, Bridget! :) Yours are always perfectly flush with the rest of the icing!

I actually tried this technique last weekend! I’ve attempted to decorate cookies 4 times and only 2 times actually worked out…lol. So, I used it on my second successful attempt. I made onesies with lavender frosting and turquoise dots. Super easy, even for this newbie.

i love how something as simple as wet on wet can be so BEAUTIFUL! And I love getting DOTTY! And I also found two new loves... love the strawberry cookies AND those Apples. first time seeing that set =)

I think this is an interesting way to show your your skills to yourself as a chef and also a way to discover how creative you can be. I'm gonna try to bake cookies with extrovert designs to see what I get.

I used this technique on some Valentine's Day cookies and shared the photos on my blog www.mylittlesomethingsweet.com. Thanks so much for sharing all of your techniques--I had fun with this one! I linked back to this page in my blog